Age & Memory

Story

remember what it’s like to be young.

There are 3 major concerns in aging and memory: what is memory, what happens in a stroke, and how does Alzheimer’s disease change memory.

As people age, they become quite concerned about their memories. Often they blame normal memory lapses on aging. But healthy people retain their memory capabilities. It is important to understand memory systems and how they work.

Two major conditions that impact memory, stroke and Alzheimer’s disease, are also covered.

Here’s what is included in this lesson:

• Memory systems
• Prospective memory
• Practical memory
• STM & LRM
• Types of strokes
• Symptoms of Alzheimer’s
• Causes of Alzheimer’s

Mind Map

Notes

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• Memory Systems
  • Sensory Memory
    • Buffers for vision & audition
    • Simplest kind of memory
    • Iconic memory ½ second
    • Echoic memory 3-4 sec
      • Replay tape
  •  Procedural Memory
    • What you do
  • Practical Memory
    • Everyday Memory
    • Do chestnut trees or oak trees lose leaves earlier in autumn?
    • Do horses in fields stand with head or tail to the wind?
    • In what direction do the seeds of an apple point?
    • What’s on penny; recall 3 of 8 critical features
  • Prospective Memory
    • Remember what going to do
    • Sensitive to elderly
    • Characteristics
      • Structure of normal day
      • Cueing effect (read story, remind to do)
      • Embarrassed when system fails
      • Social importance
    • “When” memory
      • do this at that time
    • Low information content
      • not a great deal of detail
    • One of most sensitive memory parts to aging
    • Easier to remember appointment with others
    • Harder to do object tasks
      • Collect a document
  • Wilkins & Baddeley
    • Simulate taking pills 4x a day
    • press button on little box
    • 2 groups:
      • Good free recall of lists
      • Bad free recall of lists
    • Good verbal memory group was less accurate = “absentminded professor effect”
  • 2 types of memory demands (Ellis, 1988)
    • Steps = anytime by end of day
      • Recall periodically over day
    • Pulses = do at specific time
      • Either remember it once or aware of all day
      • More likely to write down
      • Judged more important
      • Easier to remember
  • Short-Term Memory
    • STM
    • Working memory
    • Primary memory
    • Active memory
    • Capacity
      • 7 plus or minus 2 items
      • 7 plus or minus 2 chunks
      • Varies with type of info to recall
  • Long-Term Memory
  • Two types
    • 1. Declarative Memory
      • Conscious memories
      • A. Episodic memory (events)
      • B. Semantic memory (dictionary)
    • 2. Procedural Memory
      • Playing sports
      • Using tools
      • Dancing
      • Doing
• Stroke
  • Transient Ischemic Attack
    • Less than 24 hours
    • Stroke symptoms
    • Unless you die = stroke
  • What is a stroke
    • Blood flow disruption
    • Brain’s version of a heart attack
    • Cells die
    • Brain attack
  • 1. Ischemic Stroke
    • Blocked-Clogged Arteries
    • A. Thrombotic stroke
      • Blocking narrow arteries
    • B. Cerebral embolism (stroke
      • Clot breaks off & travel to brain
  • 2. Hemorrhagic stroke
    • Weak blood vessel in brain burst
    • Blood leaks into brain
    • Two types
      • Aneurysms = ballooning region
      • Arteriovenous malformations (AVMs
        • bleeding from cluster of abnormally formed blood vessel
  • Risk Factor
    • High blood pressure
      • Biggest risk facto
    • Family history of stroke
    • Diabetes
    • Artial fibrillation
      • Irregular, rapid heart rate
    • Narrow arteries in other parts of body
      • Legs
      • Heart
    • Too much
      • Food, alcohol, smoking, drugs
      • Birth control pills, in women over 35
  • Symptoms
    • Depends which part of brain
    • Symptoms appear rapidly (usual)
    • Can get gradually worse, gradually better or on and off
      • Difficult to diagnose
    • Coma, unconscious, sleepy
    • Confused
    • Clumsy
    • Headache
      • Starts suddenly
      • Hurts most when lying flat
      • Hurts when you cough or move
    • Changes in sensory input (vision, hearing, taste, pain)
    • Changes in output (writing, speaking, walking)
  • After the stroke
    • Most people need rehab
    • 50% have arm or hand problems
• Alzheimer’s
  • Progressive disease
  • Symptoms get worse with time
  • Symptoms
    • Inappropriate emotional response
    • Decline in intellect
    • Confused thinking
    • Memory loss
    • Repeated questioning
    • Inappropriate emotional response
    • Violence
  • Memory
    • Better procedural vs declarative
    • Better implicit vs explicit
      • Acquire new skills but not remember learning them
  • Age related
    • Likelihood increases with age
    • Strikes 50% of those over 85
  • Genetic components
    • Person with Down’s syndrome
      • (3 copies of chromosome 21)
      • Always acquire Alzheimer’s in middle age
    • Early onset
      • chromosome 1 & 14
    • Late onset
      • chromosome 10 & 19
  • Environmental component
    • 50% no relatives with disease
  • Yoruba people of Nigeria
    • high-risk genes
    • low incidence
    • maybe due to diet?
    • low-calorie, low fat, low salt diet
  • Brain proteins fold abnormally
    • Clump together
    • Interfere with neuronal activity
    • Amyloid protein
      • Cause plaque between neurons
    • Apolipoprotein E
      • Causes cell loss
      • Prevents plague removal
    • Tau protein
  • Tangles in cell bodies
  • Treatment to improve memory
    • Increase glucose & insulin
    • Acetylcholine activator drugs
    • Diet rich in antioxidants?
    • Block Aß42 production, inoculate with small amounts of Aß42

Terms

• absentminded professor effect
• active memory
• activity theory = implicit or normal theory of aging; assumes staying active delays aging.
• affect optimization = part of Labouvie-Vief’s aging theory; older you get, aim for optimal happiness
• aging in place = live in own home & community as age
• Alzheimer’s
• aneurysms
• arteriovenous malformations (AVMs)
• buffers
• cerebral embolism
• chunks
• congregate housing = private bedroom & bath but share dining room, activities, etc.
• continuity theory = when old continue same beliefs and activities from youth
• cueing effect
• declarative memory
• dependency–support script = dependent behaviors of institutionalized are attended to; rewarded
• disengagement theory = older you get, more socially isolated you become
• Down’s syndrome
• early onset Alzheimer’s
• echoic memory
• ego integrity versus despair = Erikson’s 8th stage of development; wisdom is the virtue.
• episodic memory
• everyday memory
• gerotranscendence = become more transcendent when old, less materialistic
• hemorrhagic stroke
• high blood pressure
• iconic memory
• independence–ignore script = independent behaviors of institutionalized are ignored; extinguished
• ischemic stroke
• late onset Alzheimer’s
• life-care communities = multistage retirement community, shift to more assisted care as needed
• long-term memory
• memory
• memory systems
• neuron tangles
• optimal aging = successful aging; elderly who are healthy and cognitively fit
• practical memory
• primary memory
• procedural memory
• progressive disease
• prospective memory
• protein plaque (clumps)
• pulses
• recall
• reminiscence = life review as a tool for successful aging
• secondary friends = as age lose primary friends, must establish new relationships
• semantic memory
• sensory memory
• short-term memory (STM)
• social convoy = network of friends “travel” through life together
• socioemotional selectivity theory = more careful how spend time & money as age
• steps
• stroke
• Third Age = over 45; last trimester of life
• thrombotic stroke
• transient ischemic attack
• when memory
• working memory
• Yoruba people of Nigeria

Quiz

• 1. Which is the biggest risk factor for stroke:
  • a.         rigid blood-brain barrier
  • b.         high blood pressure
  • c.         low blood pressure
  • d.         neural tangles
• 2. A ballooning blood vessel is called:
  • a.         ischemic stroke
  • b.         aneurysm
  • c.          plague
  • d.          hodos
• 3. A headache that starts suddenly and hurts most when you lie flat might indicate:
  • a.         gerotranscendence
  • b.         neural tangles
  • c.         brain plaque
  • d.         a stroke
• 4. How many items can you store in Short-Term Memory:
  • a.         depends if they are chunked
  • b.         depends on the content
  • c.         typically 5 to 9
  • d.         all of the above
• 5. Which is a symptom Alzheimer’s disease:
  • a.         absent-minded professor effect
  • b.         neural tangles
  • c.         cueing effect
  • d.         all of the above

Answers

• 1. Which is the biggest risk factor for stroke:
  • a.         rigid blood-brain barrier
  • b.         high blood pressure
  • c.         low blood pressure
  • d.         neural tangles
• 2. A ballooning blood vessel is called:
  • a.         ischemic stroke
  • b.         aneurysm
  • c.          plague
  • d.          hodos
• 3. A headache that starts suddenly and hurts most when you lie flat might indicate:
  • a.         gerotranscendence
  • b.         neural tangles
  • c.         brain plaque
  • d.         a stroke
• 4. How many items can you store in Short-Term Memory:
  • a.         depends if they are chunked
  • b.         depends on the content
  • c.         typically 5 to 9
  • d.         all of the above
• 5. Which is a symptom Alzheimer’s disease:
  • a.         absent-minded professor effect
  • b.         neural tangles
  • c.         cueing effect
  • d.         all of the above

Summary

Bonus

 

Photo by Vlad Sargu on Unsplash